Samsung Galaxy S7 due to be unveiled on February 21

Samsung is due to launch the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge on February 21 during this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC), in a bid to retain its status as the global market smartphone leader.

The South Korean company has sent out media invitations for its Unpacked Event, which will take place at 19:00 CET on the Sunday evening.

It's possible the launch event may feature some form of virtual reality after Samsung featured its Gear VR headset in a short teaser clip.

While Samsung has not explicitly detailed the handsets' release details, it's highly likely given that the company launched the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge models during last year's MWC. The smartphones are expected to go on sale across Europe and the US on March 11.

Though details remain hazy, the handsets are likely to come in 5.1-inch and 5.5-inch display versions respectively, with 4GB of inbuilt RAM, 32GB/64GB of storage and 12MP camera. It's possible that Samsung may choose to reverse its controversial decision to do away with the microSD card which caused so much outrage last year.

The event could also see the launch of Samsung Pay in Europe, the company's answer to Apple's contactless payment system Apple Pay. Though Samsung Pay has been available in the US since last September, customers across Europe have been kept waiting. Apple Pay went live in the UK last July.

Samsung will be pinning its hopes on the S7 and S7 Edge to breathe life back into sales of its premium models, after its net profit slumped 40 per cent during the last three months of 2015 to 3.2tn won ($2.7bn, £1.9bn).

In July last year the company reported a year-on-year decline of 8 per cent after profits fell to 5.75tn won (£3.2bn, $4.9bn), alongside a 38 per cent decline in its mobile division's income.

"Despite the launch of Galaxy S6, improvement to earnings was quite marginal due to low smartphone shipments and an increase in marketing expenses for new product launches," Samsung said in a press release at the time.

Despite weakening sales in the past few years, Samsung remains the world's largest mobile vendor, shipping some 317 million smartphones during 2015, according to Juniper Research. Arch rival Apple recently reported that growth in its iPhone sales had been the slowest in nine years, but alongside record profits of $18.4bn for the last quarter of 2015.

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